


I Surrender Honestly, You've Always Done the Same for Me (So I Will Do It for You, for You)

by Huntress8611



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: "Take me instead", Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Author's Favorite, Crying, Day 9, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Panic, Pre-Canon, Quynh | Noriko-centric, Rescue, Role Reversal, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:20:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress8611/pseuds/Huntress8611
Summary: “Please! No!” Quynh yelled, and that made up Andromache’s mind.“Take me instead. I bewitched her! She did nothing, her soul can still be saved!” Andromache yelled, and surprisingly, that stopped the men in their tracks.orIn which Andromache was the one taken instead of Quynh.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946887
Comments: 12
Kudos: 94
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	I Surrender Honestly, You've Always Done the Same for Me (So I Will Do It for You, for You)

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work is from the song Gone, Gone, Gone by Phillip Phillips.
> 
> This work fills the prompt for Whumptober Day 9: "Take Me Instead."
> 
> TW: drowning

The doors opened and they looked up to see the priest there, surrounded by some men.

Andromache looked past the people and felt her heart skip a beat.  _ No. _

“No, no!” Quynh screamed as she, too, realized what was happening. “No, not this...”

She fought against the men as they removed her shackles, but she was too weak, too tired from the many deaths she’d suffered over the past few weeks.

“No!”

“Where are you taking her?” Andromache yelled.

“You are too powerful together,” the priest said. “For creatures such as you, there is no salvation.”

Salvation. No salvation- wait. She had an idea.

“Please! No!” Quynh yelled, and that made up Andromache’s mind.

“Take me instead. I bewitched her! She did nothing, her soul can still be saved!” Andromache yelled, and surprisingly, that stopped the men in their tracks.

“Andromache, no-” Quynh whispered in horror. She was scared, absolutely  _ terrified _ of being put in that iron maiden, of being thrown into the ocean and drowning until Andromache found her, but she would rather drown a million times than have Andromache take her place.

“Quynh,” she whispered in her language, the one so old that only the two of them still knew it. “Quynh, I love you. I love you so much. Find the others, and then you can find me. It’ll be okay.”

“Andromache, you can’t!” she responded in the same language, and the men surrounding them put Quynh back into the shackles and began to remove Andromache’s.

“Please, Quynh, I-”

She paused, and used the split second where the grips of the people holding her were loose to lunge towards Quynh and cup her face in her hands, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead before she was pulled away again.

“Andromache!” Quynh shouted. “I’ll find you, I swear it! I’ll find you. I love you!”

Quynh let out a wail of pure grief as they locked Andromache in that prison and hauled her away.

She didn’t know how she cried, or how long she sat in that cell, her heart broken, but eventually, the door slowly creaked open.

She flinched, assuming that it was her turn to be taken away to be cleansed or saved or whatever the hell they wanted to do to her, but then the person who had opened the door spoke.

“Quynh!”

She gasped and looked up to see Nicolo and Yusuf standing in the doorway.

“Nicolo, Yusuf!” she cried out in relief, which spurred them into action.

Nicolo stood at the door to keep watch and ensure nobody saw them, and Yusuf rushed over to her and undid her shackles before pulling her into a tight hug.

“Yusuf, Yusuf,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his shoulder. “Yusuf, they- they took her, they took my Andromache.”

“Okay, okay,” Yusuf said, somehow managing to keep his voice steady, knowing that if he panicked and Quynh panicked, Nicolo wouldn’t be able to stop them from going and doing something stupid. “We’ll get her back, Quynh. We will. First, we gotta get out of here.”

Quynh nodded, and he picked her up. She didn’t complain about him doing so, and that was very telling.

Nicolo led them out of the town and into the woods, where he and Yusuf had left their stuff.

They all sat, Yusuf still with his arms around Quynh.

“Tell us what happened, Quynh,” Nicolo said, reaching out and resting a hand on her shoulder.

“They- we were talking, and they showed up. I thought- I assumed- well, usually when they showed up, they’d decided on a new method of trying to kill us, and this time was the same, but so, so much worse.”

She paused and they let her, Nicolo gently rubbing his hand up her back.

“They had- that had an iron maiden, and they started to undo my shackles, and I panicked. I was so scared, I didn’t want to die forever, and definitely not like that. And then Andromache, she said something about her bewitching me, telling them that my soul could still be saved,”

“Oh, Quynh,” Yusuf murmured, running his fingers through her dirty hair, gently removing the tangles. He had an idea of where this was going, and he didn’t like it.

“I don’t know how they believed that, but they did, and they put me back in my shackles, and they started to undo Andromache’s. She fought against them, but only for a second. Just long enough to-” she broke off. “Then they took her. She didn’t even fight them, she just let them. She told me everything would be okay, and I promised, I swore we would find her. We  _ have _ to find her, please.”

“We’ll find her. We’ll figure out where they took her, where they- where they left her in the ocean,” Nicolo winced at that. He couldn’t imagine how Andromache and Quynh were feeling, and he didn’t want to. “We’ll get her back. No matter how long it takes, we’ll find her, Quynh.

**_\---over a decade later---_ **

Quynh barely remembered to hold her breath when she revived. She opened her eyes, not at all caring about the salt water in her eyes. She could barely see, it was dark this deep, but she could make out the outline of something that could have been the iron maiden. She made sure the rope was still secured around her and swam over to it.

As she got closer she heard something banging against the metal and saw bubbles. She moved as fast as she could, and just as she got there, there was silence. She worked as quickly as she could, removing the chains and ropes from around the iron maiden and opened the doors.

Andromache’s eyes shot open, and Quynh grabbed onto her and quickly tied the rope around her waist as well. She knew they wouldn’t make it to the surface without dying, but at least this way they wouldn’t drift off.

She cradled Andromache’s face in her hands and pressed their foreheads together, and Andromache recognized her. She grasped Quynh’s hands as tightly as she could, and the relief in her eyes was visible, even in the darkness of the ocean.

Quynh couldn’t hold her breath any longer, and she drowned. When she revived, Andy was dead again, but the rope attached to her was moving, pulling them up. Nicolo and Yusuf always gave her a certain number of minutes before they pulled the rope back up, so her time must have run out.

She continued to hold Andromache’s hands tightly, and when she revived, she struggled for a moment before realizing that she was free.

They died a few more times, but finally Quynh could see light, and the bottom of the boat they had used to get here.

When she breached the surface, she gasped, coughing, and someone grabbed her free hand. She held onto Andromache’s hand, and heard her gasp and cough and cry from relief at the first breath of air she’d taken in a very long time.

“Andromache!” Nicolo said, immediately pulling her out of the water.

Yusuf looked up from Quynh, who he’d helped out of the water, and smiled so wide it hurt.

“Andromache. Quynh, you found her. You did it!”

Quynh nodded, dragging herself up into a sitting position and reaching for Andromache’s hand, which she’d lost her grip on.

“Quynh,” she gasped, her voice hoarse from inhaling sea water for so long.

Quynh grabbed her and pulled her into her arms.

“Andromache, Andromache. I-”

“How- how long?” Andromache asked.

“Twelve years,” Quynh whispered. “I’m  _ so _ sorry.”

“Twelve years,” Andromache repeated numbly, trying to process that.

Nicolo and Yusuf, unable to resist any longer, pulled the two women into a group hug.

“We’ve been looking for you ever since we rescued Quynh,” Nicolo said. “We’re so sorry that it took this long.”

“Never,  _ ever _ do something like that again, Andromache. You can’t leave me like that. Never again,” Quynh said forcefully.

“I- I don’t regret it. It was worth it. You’re safe.”

“I don’t fucking  _ care. _ You can't do that to me. I can’t live without you.” The anguish is Quynh’s voice was so thick, and they all tightened their grips on each other, as if they would disappear if they let go.

“Okay, okay. I’m so sorry, Quynh. I’m sorry.”

“I love you, Andromache. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Does this make any sense? Not really. Would this have actually worked? Probably not. Am I posting it anyway because it hurts and that’s the whole point? Yeah.


End file.
